KARACHI: Pakistan will host first international online youth scrabble championship, WESPA Youth Cup from Jan 22, in which 96 players from the 16 countries will contest for the virtual scrabble youth cup, organizers said on Tuesday.

"It is a great honor for Pakistan that the global regulatory body of scrabble, World English-language Scrabble Players Association (WESPA) has chosen Pakistan as the host for the championship being played online for the first time due to the Covid-19 situation..." Tariq Pervez director youth program of the Pakistan Scrabble Association (PSA) told a news conference on Tuesday.

Accompanied by representatives from Quetta Gladiators Faraz Maqbool and Mansoor Khan of Pharmevo, which are the sponsors of the international youth event, as well as tournament director Hassan Hadi Khan and director technical of the tournament Vali M Khubaib, Tariq Pervez said they have come up with technological solutions to hold the virtual championship as all the scrabble events have been cancelled till 2022 in the world.

The virtual championship named as 'Gladiators WESPA Youth Cup' will be supervised by a team of highly qualified experts led by the Technical Director Vali Muhammad Khubaib while young Hassan Hadi Khan has been chosen as the Tournament Director by WESPA.

The organizing team will be hosted at the Pharmevo guest house in Karachi where special arrangements have been made including a playing room, a commentary box and a control room equipped with high-speed internet and online monitoring equipment for the organizing team, PSA's Director Youth Program added.

All games will be completely monitored by the technical team through webcams. Pakistan is considered one of the favorite teams to win the championship. The Pakistan team will be announced at the end of the qualifying tournament on January 17th.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021